The weblog of Norman Geras

October 14, 2007

Trouble amongst the 'anti-imperialists'

It seems that there are those wanting to formalize the existence of a 'global progressive front' between the left and revolutionary Islam. Otherwise expressed, 'a synthesis of Marxist and Khomeinist ideologies'. Well, what could be more natural? The 'free development of each [as] the condition for the free development of all' in blissful harmony with the everlasting subordination of women.

Anyway, if this piece by Amir Taheri is to believed, Dinny Dinejad and Hugo the Huggable were in different ways behind a four-day conference in Tehran to promote that union. But Che Guevara's daughter, Aleida Guevara, threw a spanner in the works by insisting that her old boy 'never met God'. This made her less welcome to the Iranian authorities than she had been before saying it.

Someone else she wasn't altogether welcome to was Parviz Jamshidi, a lawyer for imprisoned trade unionists. He said: 'To them [visitors like Aleida Guevara] workers represent nothing but an abstraction, an excuse for appearing left and chic. They don't see that the Khomeinist regime is at war against the poorest sections of our society.' The story is here. (Thanks: RB.)